


Some Kinda Mad Jumbled Love Confession

by elegantanagram (Lir)



Series: HSWC 2014 Bonus Round Fills [14]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Awkward Conversations, Canon Compliant, F/M, Love Confessions, Miscommunication, POV Third Person, Unrequited Crush, Wordcount: 100-2.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1929318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You're saying a lotta words, Kankles, but all I'm hearing is 'blah blah blah,'" Latula confesses. "Can't you try and give me the cliff notes? The reader's digest? The action replay?"</i>
</p><p>Kankri attempts to proposition Latula about the feelings he may or may not be experiencing toward her. He entirely fails in being circumspect about it. He also fails to exhibit even a rudimentary understanding of his own species' romance system.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Kinda Mad Jumbled Love Confession

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the first bonus round of the 2014 [Homestuck Shipping World Cup.](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/) The prompt was "Remember when Kankri desperately asked Latula for help, and because Mituna was safe with Kurloz, she decided to meet up with him? Remember when it wasn't help he actually wanted?"
> 
> I find Kankri really _interesting_ in the potential he presents as a character and yet I never did much with that in fiction. I was really happy to get to dig deeper into the frankly kind of creepy relationship he has with Latula in canon.

-

"Alright, Kankz, what's the sitch?" Latula asks. 

She rolls up on her little four-wheeled scooting device, coming in fast enough on the skateboard that Kankri almost jumps. After the number of tersely worded and increasingly lengthy missives he'd sent her, and with no response, her arrival comes as a bit of a surprise. He thinks she even looks worried, a wrinkle forming between her brows as she looks him over. 

He's calmer now, drawing himself up straight to a full height that still leaves the tops of his horns even with her eye level at best. This is all in compliance with the perfectly reasonable plan he'd got it into his pan to put into motion. He's certainly experiencing nothing like nerves at all. 

"Thank you for coming," he says, grandiose more than grateful. It seems appropriate to welcome her, though he does it more like the opening speaker for a keynote address than a troll in peril for some indescribable harm. "Considering your responsibilities to your lamentably impaired matesprit, I was left uncertain whether you'd be able to spare time out of your afterlife to respond to an unrelated call for assistance, least of all one coming from a troll to whom you've formed no attachments greater than friendship." 

Now her whole forehead is wrinkling up, but Kankri no longer thinks it's concern.

"That's nice, dude, but what's the problem?" Latula asks. "Lay it on me, I rushed over here on the ten-four and you've got me clueless. Did any of that gibberish you sent me say what's up?" 

"I preferred to do the bulk of my speaking to you in person," Kankri sniffs. 

Latula just levels him a glassy-eyed stare, which is managing something, glassy as all of their eyes have been as the default since their deaths. 

"Let's here it, K. K. Blabber," she suggests. "I'm ready for whatever it is you've got to dish out." 

He's already said so much to her in messages. But here, now, with her expectantly tapping her foot and arching her brows, for all that she's graciously giving him time, here is where it becomes imperative that he find the precise right words. 

"While I remain grateful that the particular importance of our friendship has always remained the foremost defining aspect of our interactions, and, frankly, relieved that we've never slipped into the murky waters of more confused emotional attachments, I've taken yet another period for reflection and personal consideration and I believe I may have misjudged."

Latula's expression is beginning to look just slightly alarmed, though her lips remain frozen in her usual bright smile. Regardless, Kankri pushes on. 

"It's not my intention to suggest that any of my past choices or beliefs may have been incorrect, and I consider it to be important for any individual presented with the universal challenge of enduring adolescence and growing up to explore their circumstances and become aware of both their individualistic opinions and any inherent privileges to their situation, but it may now be the case that my oath of celibacy is something I too, like my post-scratch iteration, must put aside in order to progress myself as a mutable, unpresuming troll capable of growth."

"You're saying a lotta words, Kankles, but all I'm hearing is 'blah blah blah,'" Latula confesses. "Can't you try and give me the cliff notes? The reader's digest? The action replay?" 

"I'd like to try exploring quadrants," he says. It's too blunt, and he quickly backtracks, qualifying his bare-faced statement with, "That is to say, I am aware that I have little personal experience with matters of love and non-platonic relationships, and it seems prudent that I not jump into any such entanglement too hastily, if I am to jump in at all. You've always been a very good friend to me, with so many good qualities about you that I feel I out of all our friends may be most uniquely able to appreciate, and I feel that with you, changing the fundamental nature of our interactions won't change my ability to see those good things in you, which is something I can't say for certain about taking up with any of our other friends." 

"Kankz," Latula says. "Are you trying to ask me out? Because this sounds like some kinda mad jumbled love confession, but you keep saying these words and I don't even know which quadrant you mean." 

"That's not important," Kankri says. "I'm aware of your longstanding matespritship with Mituna and I wouldn't begin to presume to intrude on that happiness, though I also can't say I begin to understand by what means the two of you have made so improbable and outwardly-suspect relationship a success, but if you'll pardon me for saying it, I think we could have something... Really special. I think we already do have something special, made up of all those things about you that I see when no one else really does." 

Latula is back to staring at him, mouth sagged slightly open, cheeks still squinched up even though the expression on her face might not qualify any longer as a smile. 

"At least tell me you'll consider my proposition," Kankri says. "We can start with something simple, even, as it seems to me that moirallegience is, if you'll pardon the inherent judgment involved with ranking anything on a valued scale, one of the easier quadrants to get into. In fact, with all of the useful insight I'm constantly willing to provide to our group, I feel I'm already quite qualified to fulfill that role for you." 

Latula's hand twitches, and for a singular moment Kankri wonders if she's wanting to pap him. This entire business is going far more smoothly than some of the more ambitious endeavors he's tried. 

"Yeah, uh," Latula starts. "I'll... Think about it Kank." 

"Of course," he says. "Take all the time that you need to come to your best conclusion." 

"Sure. Um. I gotta... Go. You know, things to see, places to do, pavement to grind on. Later." 

She drops her board back onto the asphalt and hops on. As he watches her skate off, Kankri admires the way her hair blows back from her face with her forward momentum, and thinks that he's gone and really accomplished something. 

-

-


End file.
